Abel has found a newspaper account of sorta-consensual (as in, agreed-to to avoid prosecution) private birchings for “female shoplifters of gentle birth”:

I doubt that the original “London Truth” source is any more reliable than Правда ever was, but it’s a fun tale nonetheless — the sort of tale that gets recounted in the funny papers because it’s slightly lurid and because enough people sort of want to believe it even if they actually don’t.